Art and society

[Stacy]

Yes, I've been reading feminist blogs instead of working on 10. Oh well - it's what my brain wants to do right now, and my brain gets what it wants.

The Artless Future Lies Ahead

Personally - I found it really hard to stomach the OP's view. Art is deeply important to me, and I cannot find any evil in it.

I think - I think that maybe by "art" the OP means things like art galleries and some "canon" of literature, decided on by white male academics. But by using the word "art", she included everything creative ever. I just can't understand how creating is evil now, how it contributes to oppression now, and why it won't be needed in the future. Isn't creating a deeply human activity? Is not true and free and open creation a sign of liberation?

I wanted to share this here because I really like the discussion in the comments.

I am not sure what universe some of the commenters live in though. Certainly not one I am familiar with.

Art is conformity, as is culture.

Can anyone explain that, maybe someone more in touch with the universe this came from? In my personal experience it has always seemed very much the opposite, that art is not conforming at all.

art will become less about the expression of cultural ideals and more about exploration of things which are alien to us. Rather than having art continually enforcing the status quo, art will instead exist as an exploration of new ideas, which satisfies our intellectual curiosity.

Okay, that - I personally thought the whole exploration of new ideas and intellectual curiosity and all was part of the definition of art? What definition of art is this person using?

Because we will be living post-P in a kind of utopia, art will quit being this “other,” this rarefied process, and instead become just a normal part of everyday life. If you create a profound painting, it will be hung in your house and your friends and neighbors can come look at it, but it will not go into a museum and become Art because museums are the patriarchy’s way of legitimizing certain works and othering the rest.

Hey guys! The Sims community is a post-revolution feminist utopia!



I notice that although quite a few people asked what was so wrong with writing and painting and music and whatever, no one ever really answered.

Do you guys have any thoughts?

[hrootbeer]

Sometimes I think intellectuals get caught up in their own intellectualism and forget that sometimes one does something just for fun and enjoyment.

I once read that Art was expression and somewhere else I read that Art is experience. I personally agree with these two statements.

Unless we become mindless automaton, then I don't see how art can be a form of conformity. Some art might conform to certain standards but really, how can what a person does as an expression or even as an experience be conformity? I think whoever this person claims to be, she is talking out her ass (sorry for the language).

As for the second statement, I think it contradicts the first, but I don't find anything really wrong with it per se. I think art is a form of exploration and shouldn't enforce the status quo...i.e. I don't think art could ever be conformity (the status quo). As for exploring something alien or satisfying intellectual curiosity, I think that both are true for art throughout time. It isn't a new idea for art to do those things. What was Monet doing with all of his stippling if not exploring an alien technique? (Sorry if I'm not getting my art terms right...I suck at painting so I haven't learned what each thing is called). And look at Hemmingway (whom I hate as a writer btw); he was exploring different writing styles. He used short sentences, minimal descriptors, realistic and often depressing settings. His was a harsh life and he explored various aspects of it through his art using a different style than previous writers. It all follows that art should be an exploration of new ideas. I say to this...DUH!

Finally, to the last statement about museums being a thing of the past (I don't think I can dignify the absurdity of her statement that "museums are the patriarchy's way of legitimizing certain works")--personally, I hope that museums are still around in whatever "utopia" that follows the crap we are living with now. Museums should preserve culture and works of the past. They should show off works of the present, too. The author thinks that in the future people will create and display in their own homes...to this I say, "yeah, and how's that so different than now?"

Honestly, there is a lot of art that I think is absolute garbage (past and present), and I often wonder how it becomes what people view to be the epitome of "ART". Who does make the rules about what is aesthetic? While I don't agree that it is some sort of masculine agenda to perpetuate a sort of artistic elite, I do see the writer's point that a select few decide what is legitimate art.

I personally never want to live in a utopia, but I suppose I should be somewhat thrilled that this writer has justified my Sims writing

[hrootbeer]

Feb 6, 2011 20:33:52 GMT -5 Stacy said:

I notice that although quite a few people asked what was so wrong with writing and painting and music and whatever, no one ever really answered.

Do you guys have any thoughts?

I don't think anything is wrong with writing, painting, music or any other form or art. The thing that is wrong is idealizing any sort of expression (which the writer of the blog blames on the "patriarchy"). Why should art be criticized and judged?

The problem is that no matter what, the world can't be "ideal" because someone has to define what ideal is. Then, no matter how much you try not to judge, you set standards and boundaries for what fits into the ideal. Thus, no matter how often the "revolution" happens, it's doomed to fail (or fall). Utopia is never going to happen. And that is the flaw in the writer's thinking. Art won't go away because people don't really change their basic nature. The only thing that people really change is the environment around them. And what changes an environment more than art? Even invention is a form of artistic expression because when you invent you create something that never existed using only your own mind and the materials you have around you.

Hell, the wheel is the best form of art there is!

P.S. Stacy, thanks for the fun topic. Obviously, if you can't tell, I don't care for feminists that much (though I am a woman and don't feel like I have to depend on a man to define my world).

[pinkfiend1]

Art is conformity:
I think a lot of art does conform to popular beliefs of what what something should be, as people catergorise it, thus it is conforming to that particular catergory. Pretty much everything can be fit into a nice little box and as long as things can be put into a box they are conforming to something. I mean everybody thinks that graffiti art was created not for profit, but if you didn't want to profit from your art whether financially or by popularity you wouldn't let anybody see it. And in cas recently you certainly wouldn't make a movie out of it that gets Oscar nominated.

Even culture conforms to stereotypes and can all be neatly catergorised. Religion, hobbies, favourite book/movie genres, work, social life, place you live, type of decoration in your house, type of house etc. Everything can be explained and everything has some reason behind which although which may not be the original intention there is no selfless good dead as one of those Friends episodes proved. You volunteer for a charity yes your helping others, which in turn makes you feel good, gives you something to do, helps gain skills etc which are all selfish. I mean you wouldn't spend your life helping groups of people in need in he poorer countries if it didn't give you some sort of satisfaction.

Art doesn't necessarily explain new ideas. Portraits, autobiographies etc show what is and not some weird view of the future. Besides which everybodies view of the future is influenced by something, somehow. Things you wish would happen, things you are scared could happen, or merely transplanting happennings in different places over to a place where you wouldn't consider it happenning. For example the noughts and crosses books, people thought that was revolutionary when really it was just showing what could have happenned if white people were opressed instead of black people, and throwing in aspects of stories into the mix to add to a plot, like the westside story/Romeo and Juliet aspects.
In a way nothing could ever be considered revolutionary as it is all just a mixture of different ideas that have already been explored into somehting new, which is only considered revolutionary as nobody else has tried doing that before in that way.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with art, writing music etc but trying to state that it is brilliant/ life affiriming or whatever is wrong as everything is subjective. I look at a painting and see something I like, but another person will completly hate it.
Vincent Van Gogh comletly hated in his own time, and for some reason popular now, even if the majority of his paintings are like the kind of paintings you put on your fridge as your child drew it. You wouldn't try to sell them but because Van Gogh did try to it became popular at one point and became a big historical thing. I mean anyone can paint write etc and our ability is really just down to perception, and how we try to fit into a particular box. In the end Noughts and Crosses is just a love story built around conflict, the Da Vinci code just a very flimsy love story built around a historical conterversory to try to spice it up a bit.

[dinuriel]

As usual, I didn't read the whole post--I know it was short, but I'll admit that I have difficulty focusing while reading non-fiction and usually quit if the first couple sentences don't grab me--but I agree with Stacy about the word "art". To me, all creation is art, even if it isn't widely acknowledged as being so--and frankly, I wouldn't want to live in a world with no creation. It's human nature to create, patriarchy or not, and definitely has an associate with freedom and expression in my mind. And I do think art is intellectual because art is about ideas.

Feb 6, 2011 21:46:35 GMT -5 hrootbeer said:

Obviously, if you can't tell, I don't care for feminists that much (though I am a woman and don't feel like I have to depend on a man to define my world).

Interesting thought. I think there's feminism and there's feminism, if that makes any sense. The kind of feminism that's about equality and harmony between the sexes and about women not needing men to define them? Good. But some people take it out of hand and blow everything out of proportion and hate the living shit out of men just for being men, as if every single man on the planet "deserves it". I see that with things like vegetarianism as well, plus pretty much any religion.

It's kind of like alcohol, I guess. A moderate amount? Great! Too much, too often? Not so much.

[lepifera]

Feb 6, 2011 21:46:35 GMT -5 hrootbeer said:

The problem is that no matter what, the world can't be "ideal" because someone has to define what ideal is. Then, no matter how much you try not to judge, you set standards and boundaries for what fits into the ideal.

Just want to share the link to a poem about utopia by Wisiawa Szymborska:

nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1996/szymborska-poems-1-e.html

[rad]

I think there is some truth in the claim that art which has been 'legitimised' has often been done in a patriarchal way. I'm thinking of our main arts in the UK, whether literature, rock music, film, fine art, classical music or theatre, and they are still highly male dominated, not just in those producing the work (or rather, those whose work is being showcased as I suspect there are probably more women creating work than men, it's just less visible on the 'big' stage, e.g. national recognition, prizes etc), but also those in positions of power such as dealers, theatre owners and so on.

[ soapbox ] I don't really know why feminism has become such a dirty word these days. My students will say 'I'm not a feminist but...' and yet believe in many feminist principles. The areas where they're not so feminist is where for some reason I can't fathom, culture started to tell people (around the late 90s?) a load of nonsense about how different the sexes were, when those differences are minimal at best. I could go on a polemical rant all day about this stuff. Yes I am a feminist, for feminism just means the desire for equality amongst the sexes. I think the term is perhaps unhelpful now, as it's become synonymous with urban myths about bra-burning and the few extreme feminists of the 60s and 70s who became anti-men. I guess if feminist is becoming a redundant term (and it's not so helpful in its emphasis of the feminine when it's about everyone) would be that I support equality, seeing as how I believe in equality for people of different ethnicities, sexual orientations, genders and physical abilities.

Patriarchy still persists in most countries of the world, though. You only have to look at the media in the USA and UK to see how women are still derided and belittled for being women, how women are encouraged to have perfect bodies more than men are (though it does happen for men as well), how much harder it is for a woman to get ahead in pretty much any field. I don't know what the press coverage was like over there but when Clinton was running against Obama, the press coverage here called her Hillary and him Obama - no equality there - and basically suggested she was the less credible candidate because she was female. It was atrocious!

Hmmm... this is beginning to sound like the day job now, sorry!

[ / soapbox ]

Of course art has validity, in all its forms. I think it can become establishment (I'm thinking artists hanging out with Tony Blair at Number 10 - though those seem like heady days now, given our current terrible government) but the majority of art is created and circulated at the fringes.

However, I was very much in favour of the way, over here, our last government and the National Lottery would fund significant art projects, so we have major public works of art like the Angel of the North and most of our national art galleries and museums are free to visit. The current government proposed making us go back to paying but have held off on that for now, although they're bound to rescind that eventually.

Hmmm.... I'll stop before I rant for a day about how much our current government are going to screw everyone over.

[mdpthatsme]

I think this writer or whatever was very two dimensional.

Firstly, I believe the question should be established. What is art? What is the first thing you think about when someone says the word art? DaVinci, VanGogh, sculpting, landscaping, or dancing? Most people think of paintings when hearing the word art.

I think art as the creative side of life, anything creative can be a work of art, like a less cooked and more buttery grilled cheese sandwich. It can be art and very yummy.

Music is a big part of my life and I see it as art. Drawing, photography, writing, Simming, all these things are art to me. So art is based on perception, coming from me. For instance, some people think that this is art:



(Picture courtesty of Google Images)

I don't. I see it as a dust collector.

When people ask me about my art, I instantly believe they are referring to things such as:



(Courtesy of my pencils, shaders, and hands)

Because I see people as art. It's also why I believe that anything creative or artful in the future is determined on how people flourish, not like being raised and such, but how they see things. Example: a meadow, during the fall, it rained last week, but you wouldn't be able to tell, there's a slight breeze, the sky is clear, the sun is sinking back to the horizon so it must be around 4 o'clock...the scene can be art, if you see it as art, but if you don't, you don't.

Little rambing, but I hope you get the picture. Pun not intended. (shrug)